


Finest Funery

by deslea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, F/M, Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 08:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7837477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deslea/pseuds/deslea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They will all be dead tomorrow, this is their funeral for one another, and she is sparkling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finest Funery

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday gift (slightly belated) for lemonade8 on LJ/DA.

"Dance with me."

He is sitting next to Remus when she approaches them; the two of them have reached an understanding of sorts. It is not in him to reconcile with everyone who has done him harm before he dies, but Remus was one of the less culpable, and less malicious offenders. They have spent their share of companionable time together of late at Grimmauld Place, much of it in this very room.

There is mischief in her eyes, mischief that is entirely out of place for a wake. Her dress swirls around her as she walks, red and flowing, moving as though it has a life of its own. She strikes him as elvish tonight, spritely, like some kind of magical creature that thrives on war and tragedy. While the others are festive in a maudlin or bittersweet way, she is unaccountably alive. 

They will all be dead tomorrow, this is their funeral for one another, and she is sparkling.

"No thank you, Miss Granger," he demurs with a courtly nod of his head as she deposits herself onto the side of his chair, stretching long, elegant calves across his vision. "Dance with Remus. He hasn't been your teacher in four years, and he is like an uncle to you. I'm sure he'd be happy to."

"I don't want Remus." Then, with a flicker of her eyelids at Remus, she adds, "No offence."

Remus is smirking. "None taken."

Damn the man.

A smile passes over her lips, and deliberately, she uncrosses and re-crosses those elegant calves. "Come now, Severus, you haven't been able to keep your eyes off me. You really don't want to?" 

He disregards the impertinent use of his name without leave; it hardly matters anymore. "Don't be absurd." 

She cocks an eyebrow. "You're going to deny it? At this late hour?" He doesn't think she is speaking of the time of night.

"You misunderstand me. I was disputing your conclusion, not your observation."

"Then dance with me," she says again, implacably.

"I will do no such thing. It would be improper. The teacher-student relationship is based on benevolence. It must be entirely focused on the needs of the student. Any self-interest on the part of the teacher is unacceptable." 

"You? Benevolent?" Her tone is lightly mocking.

"You don't have to be nice to be benevolent, Miss Granger. In fact I would say the two are almost mutually exclusive."

Remus snorts laughter through his nose. He has opined more than once that Severus is the better teacher, on precisely those grounds.

"Fine. Your _student_ -" she says that mockingly too "- needs to dance. So dance with me. And mind you don't be nice about it or anything. I wouldn't want you to feel compromised."

"I will not."

"Severus, by this time tomorrow, every one of us will be dead. Do you really think it matters anymore? Time and space and years and roles, any of it?"

Remus shrugs. "She's got you there. Really, you might as well."

He glares sidelong. "You're not helping, Lupin."

"Oh, get off your high horse, Severus. Hermione's quite right. Would it be appropriate if we weren't all about to die? Doubtful. But we _are_ at war, we _are_ all about to die, and school's out. It's been out for months now. So get the hell over yourself and dance with her."

"I'm right here, you know," she says, but her tone is rich and warm and deeply amused.

Exasperated, he says, "Miss Granger, do you even know _how_ to dance?"

"Of course I do. Sirius taught me."

"Sirius? Gracelessness on four legs? _That,_ " he says darkly, "is not dancing."

"Then perhaps you could show me," she retorts. "Perhaps you could _teach_ me."

He arches an eyebrow. "Touché."

Remus is laughing openly now. "For the love of Merlin, Severus, just go. I simply _have_ to see this before I die." 

Granger has him outclassed, perhaps, but Remus doesn't, and he decides at a minimum that he isn't going to stick around for the commentary. 

The lesser of two evils so chosen, he rises, and lets her lead him away.

 

* * *

It takes a few minutes for them to settle into each other. 

Hermione is a better dancer than he'd assumed; Severus attributes this to the Yule Ball more than Sirius. She moves fluidly in his arms, and responds to leading better than he'd expected. But they don't completely relax until they get past the initial mechanics. Unbending doesn't come easily to him, even now, and it seems that is also true of her.

But unbend he does. He feels it as one breath passes into the next, taking tension out of his stance and his voice. There is a _shift_ , a moment when something forced becomes something natural. His whole life has been that way. He is an outsider who has, late in life, come _inside_ , and in her way, he suspects Hermione is, too.

They have found home together, he thinks, with people unlike them, united by values and purpose. Not ones either of them would have chosen, no. But home just the same.

He murmurs something of this, fragments of half-formed thoughts, and she agrees that it is so. She does it complacently. The complacency of people who share a language and do not need to draw out the details.

They fall silent after that, but presently, she says, "You were a good teacher, you know."

He gives a small sound of laughter at that. "I was an _abominable_ teacher. I don't even _like_ children."

She laughs too, low and warm. "You don't like anyone, much."

"There is that."

"But I didn't say you were a _nice_ teacher, I said you were a good one. Potions is dangerous. You kept us safe. You were careful with us."

His brows knit together in a frown, but he says nothing. This final battle, the one that you lose to win the war, will kill her and everyone in this room. He is its main architect, he and Dumbledore both. If he could ever have claimed to have kept her safe, he can no longer claim it now.

As though she has gleaned his thoughts, she says, "I don't _mind_ dying. I mean, I don't _want_ to, but it's in a good cause."

"Yes," he agrees.

She goes on artlessly, "I mind that I didn't...I never...you know." A blush rises in her cheeks, and she looks away. No longer the soldier, but the teenager. Funny the way she manages to switch so seamlessly between both.

"Become a woman?" he says ironically, cocking an eyebrow.

She play-smacks his arm. "Don't make fun, you insufferable git. And yes. Wouldn't you?"

He relents. "Of course. I didn't mean to be insensitive. It's a bad habit of mine."

"I hadn't noticed," she says dryly.

"I do hope, Miss Granger, that this isn't the part where you ask me to do the honours. I'm sure Potter or Longbottom would be most willing." Or Weasley, except he was killed a year ago, which is probably how it is that she's still a virgin in the first place. A childlike romance that probably would have fizzled quite naturally if he hadn't died.

As he knows too well, death has a way of making such loyalties linger beyond their natural lifespan.

She snorts. "Those two? I wouldn't want it to be a _boy_. A man, who knew what he was doing, though..."

"My dear girl," he says, not without sympathy, "you have a lot to learn about the subtle art of seduction."

"And no time to learn," she counters.

"It would be improper," he says, but he says it complacently. He no longer really knows whether he will yield, but he does know it no longer matters. Remus is right about that much - they both are.

At its most utilitarian, the question is simply _Where is the harm?_ And the answer is, _None._

And that means the real question is simply, _Is it what I want?_ \- a question he has not allowed himself, about anything, in years.

"Yes, it would," she agrees. "I'm surprised it's taken you this long to bring that up."

"An abuse of power, too." He adds ironically, "Some girls take years to recover, I'm told."

"I'm unlikely to live long enough to be traumatised at all."

"Not to mention the fact that I just might not want to."

He does want to, of course. But arguing with her is something that has a life, a vitality of its own, and he is curiously unwilling to stop. The room is sighing into its death throes around them, people sinking into abstraction over drinks, unlikely couples of short duration melting away (the only one to really raise his eyebrows is Moody and Tonks), and _this_ seems to him to be the only thing left here still fully alive.

He doesn't want to let it go.

"Oh, please," she scoffs. "You want to."

He spares her a small sound of concession. Shrugs.

"How did you imagine it, anyway?" he wonders. "I'm sure it wasn't like this."

"I didn't," she says. "I imagined my first kiss and was disappointed. I decided not to do that again."

"Ever the pragmatist," he approves. "What was the first kiss you didn't get, then?"

"In the rain."

"Sounds uncomfortable."

"Ugh. You're such a git."

"So I'm told." He releases her and takes her hand. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?" she demands as they bustle out of the parlour, leaving the unofficial wake behind them.

"I want to show you something," he says, leading her up the stairs.

There is an arch in her eyebrow that he _hears_ without even seeing it. "Not your etchings?"

"Have you ever known me to even attempt to be subtle, Miss Granger?"

"Well, actually…no."

"Well, then." He leads her down the second-floor hallway to the library, and through it, the balcony. Casts an atmospheric charm ahead of them. By the time they reach the doors, a squall of rain is falling there.

She bursts out laughing. "Not subtle at all, Severus, but I love it. I never thought I'd see rain again." Before he can answer, she's out there, turning around in it, her arms stretched out wide as her shoes clatter on the tiles. The stars seem brighter through the rain, he thinks, and that spark of life in her seems brighter, too.

As he watches her from the threshold, he imagines the house sighing sadly behind him. A fanciful notion, born of night and booze and dread, but also a true one. Behind them, ahead of them, all around them is dying or dead, and they are, too. They just don't know it yet.

"Severus," she calls, holding out a hand. Calling him away from death, into life.

He reaches her in three long strides, takes her face firmly between his palms, and kisses her.

A surprised intake of breath escapes her, a split-second of stillness, as though she hadn't really believed he would do it; but then her eager, clamouring lips close around his. Greedy sounds fill his ears.

She gasps out between kisses, "If you call me _Miss Granger-_ "

" _Hermione,_ " he growls, and it catches in his throat. He tries to stroke her body; his hand shudders uselessly against wet fabric stuck to skin.

" _Meteolojinx Recanto,_ " she says, and the rain stops. "You're right, that's _fucking_ uncomfortable." She's grinning; it's rather endearing.

"Ever the pragmatist," he smirks. His fingers are already working at the zipper at her back; she is attempting to peel his soaked shirt none-too-delicately off his shoulders, with little success. "Out here, or inside?" He adds with a tone of innuendo, "It's a _library._ "

She starts to laugh, turning back towards the doors, but then she seems to pause. For a second there, he thinks she sees it as he does, a doorway back to everything that is dying around them.

"Out," she whispers suddenly. "I don't want to go in."

Their gazes meet, and hold. He doesn't, either.

That seems to change things between them. He lets go of her dress.

"Hermione - are you sure-" he begins, then breaks off at the exasperated look rising in her features. "No, I don't mean it like that. I mean - this isn't… _home._ Not for either of us. It isn't going to be…what it should have been. If you'd had the life you should have lived."

She shakes her head. "Home is just…wherever you find yourself. Wherever you find life," she adds, looking again at the house, darkness flickering over her features. "And with who."

He takes her chin with his fingers. Turns her face away from the house. "Don't look at it," he says. "Look at me."

She nods. Reaches for him.

That's how they spend the last night of their lives.

END


End file.
